LAST SUNDAY OF THE CHURCH YEAR, B – November 22, 2009

SCRIPTURES – Isaiah 51:4-6; Jude 20-25; Mark 13:24-37

“The earth will wear out like a garment.” You don’t have to lift your eyes up very far to see this. How many gifts that you gave last year at Christmas are still in use? Do you even remember what you gave? There are so many things today that are temporary:

à        Cell phones. We update and change them frequently. We lose them easily.

à        Computers. They are changed less frequently, but still quite often.

à        Jobs. How rare is it today for someone to spend an entire career with the same company.

Even homes, as many of us move a number of times throughout our lives. Lorayne and I have lived in 5 different homes in our 23 years of marriage.

Do you want something that lasts, something that not only you can enjoy but that you can also pass on to your children? Listen to our Lord. “The earth will wear out like a garment,… but my salvation will be forever.” Jesus speaks very similarly: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” If you long for permanency and reliability; if, above all, you wish to have a joy-filled life that will never end, eternal life in heaven with your Lord Jesus and with those you love; then listen to your Lord! Learn His words, for they bring Christ’s salvation. Take them to heart, rely upon them, believe them, follow them, and order your life according to them. Raise your children and grandchildren in your Savior’s Word and worship, both at church and at home. Then, though everything you know passes away, you and yours will stand with your Lord forever!

Where do we hear and learn and receive our Lord and His words? Above all, in church, of course. So, to live forever with your Savior, live with Him in His house! Be regular and faithful in worshiping the Triune God! This was stated this way in last week’s reading from Hebrews 10: “let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” We should be worshiping even more as the Day of Christ’s return approaches. Why? What’s the connection between heaven and church?

I was thinking about this last week, and I came to realize that it is all about the incarnation: God becoming man. We’re soon going to be celebrating the incarnation again, remembering when God was born among us in Bethlehem. This was an extra-ordinary event; but it was not something that was out of the ordinary for God. God is incarnational, you see. Being with and among people and sharing Himself with them is His constant desire.

à        He walks with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

à        He speaks personally with Abraham and calls him His friend.

à        He reveals Himself to Moses in the burning bush, and then leads him and the people of Israel visibly, in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

à        He appears and speaks to the prophets, such as Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel.

The climax of God’s incarnational nature, of course, is His assuming a body and coming among us as a man, Jesus. But, take note of how He came. Jesus did not come as a guru, living on a mountaintop and dispensing wisdom and divine advice to those who sought Him out. He did not live as a hermit in the desert, seeking perfection by turning away from bodily desires and teaching people to do the same. God came as an ordinary man who lived among and associated with ordinary people. He chose twelve ordinary men – fishermen; a tax collector; a political hothead – and sent them out to represent Him and bring His kingdom of forgiveness and eternal life to others. “Whoever listens to you listens to Me, and whoever receives you receives Me,” He told them as He sent them out. Jesus did this because God is incarnational. He loves people, especially people who are distressed by their sins, and lives among them to share His life with them. He works through His people. The true God is a God of people.

This is why we Christians cannot simply sit at home with our Bibles and content ourselves with reading about God. We must gather with His people, for there is where He is. God is incarnational. This is why we don’t simply broadcast His words so that people can tune into them and then leave it at that. No, we build churches where Christ’s people can gather together.

à        Gather to listen to our Savior, believing that it is He who is speaking to us in this, His house. “Whoever listens to you listens to Me.”

à        Gather to be comforted by His presence. “Wherever two or three gather together in My name, there am I among them,” Jesus promises. And He comes, not as a condemning judge, but as a forgiving Savior, just as at first God came in mercy to Adam and Eve. They were hiding and trembling because of their sin, but He came with words of forgiveness: the promise of a Savior. He also came with signs of forgiveness: clothing to cover the shame of their nakedness and sin. So He comes among us in Word and Sacrament today.

à        We gather in churches to be with one another and help each other in our struggles with sin. You are among fellow sinners who can understand your temptations and sins, for they have them, too. But, you are also among the redeemed of the Lord, those who have received His forgiveness and so are triumphant over sin. We can help one another!

à        We gather together in churches because this wicked and dying world, with its disease and violence and anger and selfishness and sorrows and death, can depress and sadden us. But, here is the joy of Christ and the promise of the new heaven and the new earth, the home of righteousness! Here also are brothers and sisters who can pray for us and uplift us by their joy and faith.

Ultimately, we build churches and make them places of beauty and inspiration because our God is incarnational. He loves to be with and among people, that He might share with them His love, give them His righteousness, and so ready them for the new heavens and the new earth He is making, the eternal home of righteousness.

If gathering together with Christ’s people in His house is not your frequent desire, then you have the wrong focus. Your focus is not God’s focus, and your God is not the incarnational God, the Holy Trinity. Your Savior is not Jesus, the incarnate One. You may claim His name, but in actuality you worship an idol, a false god of your own making.

à        A guru, if you love Christ’s wisdom but not His people. When He comes again in glory from heaven, the foolishness of such wisdom will be seen, and you will be cast out with the fools.

à        A hermit, if you are trying to be a good person but are not confessing your sin to Jesus and seeking His forgiveness with His people. When He comes again in glory from heaven, the sinfulness of such efforts will be exposed.

If your faith is not incarnational, received and expressed with and among the people of God, then you will not be ready when our Lord returns.

God is incarnational. He is present with us, present to be our Savior. Be present with Him, and the salvation He won for you in the past – 2,000 years ago on the cross – will renew you now and make you ready for when He comes again. You will then live with Him and His people forever in the new heavens and the new earth, the home of righteousness! God’s words to us end, as they began, with this incarnational focus:

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away." (Rev. 21)